With Love From Spain
by Corbeaun
Summary: Post Highlander 4: Endgame. It's a game of hideandseek for Methos and Duncan after the whole Kell affair. [in permanent hiatus]


Title: With Love from Spain (1/?)  
Author: Corbeau Noir  
Rating: PG-13  
Pairing: D/M  
Email: noir_corbeau@hotmail.com  
Website: www.geocities.com/corbeaun  
  
Warnings: slash, m/m relationship  
  
Summary: Post Highlander 4: Endgame. It's a game of hide-  
and-seek for Methos and Duncan after the whole Kell affair.   
But behind the two Immortals' attempts at a relationship   
(or a lack thereof), there are the locals in the small   
Andalusian village where Methos is hiding who have a few   
misconceptions of their own.  
  
Disclaimer: Rysher, Panzer/Davis, etc. etc., own Highlander.   
  
===========================================================  
  
With Love from Spain  
By Corbeau Noir  
  
  
Part 1  
* * * *  
  
The weekly open-air market opened just at the stroke   
of dawn, but the locals paid no heed to the early hours,   
most hoping to get their shopping done before the   
blistering heat of the afternoon. When the hectic early   
hours finally passed and the sun began climbing into its   
zenith, all the store keepers retreated to the shade of   
their booths, lolling beside their produce, moving only now   
and then to swat at the cloud of buzzing insects that   
constantly swarmed around them.   
  
"Good morning, Mrs. Guerra."  
  
The lightly accented greeting roused Mrs. Guerra, the   
coffee seller, from her half-doze, and her eyes opened just   
in time to see a familiar, tall, dark-haired young man   
stroll toward her booth. "Buenos dias, Senor Pierson," she   
smiled welcomingly, hastening to her feet. "Would you like   
your regular?" Even as she spoke, her hands were already   
reaching toward the bag of rich black coffee beans he   
always bought.  
  
The young man, dressed in cleanly pressed linen pants   
and an overlarge tee-shirt, seemed remarkably unaffected by   
the heat. He took a deep breath of the air, hazel eyes   
closing briefly in pleasure at the heady aroma of brewing   
coffee, and then flashed her a mischievous schoolboy grin,   
"I'd never start my day without a cup of your coffee, Mrs.   
Guerra."  
  
Mrs. Guerra smiled even wider, handing her favorite   
customer the bag of coffee beans. "Well, you're welcome   
here anytime," she promised him. Her words were rewarded   
with another bright boyish smile.  
  
He reached into his pocket for his wallet, and   
suddenly one hand clenched convulsively around the coffee   
bag. Alert hazel eyes flicked to the side, scanning the   
surrounding marketplace.  
  
Mrs. Guerra followed his gaze, but didn't see   
anything unusual. "Senor Pierson?" There was no response   
and, concerned, she reached to touch his arm, "Senor   
Pierson, is something the matter?"  
  
His eyes snapped back to her and she froze, the hard   
alien look in his gaze freezing her hand an inch from his   
sleeve. Then Pierson seemed to shake himself mentally, as   
if ridding himself of the remnants of some shadow, and the   
strange look was gone as suddenly as it'd come. Mrs. Guerra   
blinked.  
  
"No. No, everything's fine," and he smiled at her   
reassuringly, hefting the sack of coffee beans into his   
arms, "Thank you, Mrs. Guerra." With a polite nod to her,   
he slipped on a pair of sunglasses and strolled casually   
back into the midst of the late marketplace crowd,   
disappearing easily among the roiling mass of humanity.  
  
Mrs. Guerra stared after him, feeling, for the first   
time since meeting him, strangely discomforted.  
  
"Well!" an approving voice came from the tomato   
seller's booth, "He's as adorable as ever."  
  
Mrs. Guerra started out of her daze. "Francisca!" she   
exclaimed, glancing over at the tomato stall, appalled by   
the speaker's frankness.  
  
Francisca the tomato seller, turned newly nineteen   
just two weeks before, refused to look repentant. "Well,   
it's true," she insisted, pouting her red-stained lips.   
Then she turned toward the orange seller's booth and called   
out mischievously, "Don't you agree, Mrs. Cordero?"   
  
Seated in the booth just opposite of her, old Mrs.   
Cordero gave Francisca a heavy-lidded glare, slowly   
flapping a paper fan over her carefully stacked pyramid of   
oranges. "He's a gringo," she stated, her voice flat.  
  
"Isabella Caso Cordero," Mrs. Guerra rebuked, and by   
this time she had dismissed her previous twinges of unease;   
she reached past the pile of coffee beans to poke Mrs.   
Cordero in the side, "don't be an old grouch. He's young,   
good-looking, and obviously well off. And just think," she   
smiled, "Any of the pretty young chicas here would kill to   
get a hand on him..." She winked across at the pretty young   
tomato seller. "Right, Francisca?"  
  
Francisca gave the older woman an enthusiastic grin,   
before turning her full attention to the two customers   
approaching her stand.  
  
"And I just know Lucia would too," Mrs. Guerra   
continued thoughtfully to herself.  
  
At that, Mrs. Cordero slapped her fan down on the   
booth hard and turned to face Mrs. Guerra. "Maria," she   
said, fixing her long-time friend with a hard stare, "Tell   
me you're not thinking of matchmaking that English boy with   
your baby girl."   
  
A sullen expression fell across Mrs. Guerra's face.   
Her lips tugged into what looked suspiciously like a pout;   
she refused to meet Mrs. Cordero's eyes. "Yes. Well," and   
her hands quickly occupied themselves rearranging the folds   
of her brightly printed cotton dress. "I just think he's a   
nice boy and Lucia...Well, the silly girl's always away at   
that magazine of hers, I don't think she's ever had the   
time to meet any boy, and I wouldn't trust her to bring   
back the right one anyway from that big old city." She   
leaned in confidentially toward her old friend, clucking   
distastefully, "Do you *know* what goes on in Madrid? What   
kind of *people* are there?"  
  
After a long silence, Mrs. Cordero finally spoke   
wearily, "Maria, you don't even know Pierson that well; you   
have no idea why he's here or how long he's staying." She   
gave her friend a wry look. "And in all likelihood he's a   
city boy himself."  
  
Mrs. Guerra glared at her old friend reproachfully.   
"You're always like this. Can't you not pick on something   
for once?"  
  
Looking slightly offended, Mrs. Cordero harrumphed   
and turned her attention back to her sitting oranges.   
"Whatever makes you happy, Maria," she muttered, and   
began determinedly flapping away with the fan again.  
  
About to chide her old friend for her grumpiness, a   
flash of color suddenly caught the corner of Mrs. Guerra's   
eye and she glanced over, and suddenly all her previous   
thoughts scattered. "Oh my. Would you look at that..."  
  
Mrs. Cordero glanced up impatiently from her oranges.   
"What now --...oh."   
  
Both women stared wordlessly at the vision before   
them.  
  
A tall, dark-haired, dusky-skinned man stood   
resplendent in the middle of the marketplace. The late   
midday heat had drawn a faint sheen of sweat over his skin,   
and curly wisps of hair lay glistening darkly against the   
nape of his exposed neck. The stranger looked around the   
marketplace, seemingly oblivious to the people milling   
around him, head cocked as though listening for something.   
  
It was Mrs. Guerra who spoke first.  
  
"Now that is an impressive figure of a man." She   
nudged her friend, her eyes never leaving the stranger,   
"Italian, you think?"   
  
Attention also firmly fixed on the stranger, Mrs.   
Cordero squinted. "Hard to tell." And then she shrugged,   
her meaty shoulders rolling beneath her thin cotton dress,   
"Could be."  
  
Another long thoughtful pause.  
  
Then Mrs. Cordero commented, "But you'll have to   
suspect the wits of the man to wear a coat in this sort of   
weather."  
  
  
  
[end "With Love From Spain" – Part 1]  
===========================================================  
Author's Notes:  
  
Ah, after a year or so of lurking in the Highlander fandom,   
I'm finally writing my own story. :) If anyone is curious,   
the story currently takes place in Andalusia, a part of   
Spain that with its flamenco dances and always-present sun   
is what the typical foreigner thinks as "traditional"   
Espana.  
  
Feedback needed, please, to keep this fanfic author sane. ;)  
  
--------------------------  
noir_corbeau@hotmail.com  
www.geocities.com/corbeaun  
--------------------------  
===========================================================  
8/30/02 


End file.
